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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
More Performances…
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Medieval to Renaissance . . .

Duccio, The Annunciation. National Gallery, London.

The Archangel Gabriel announces to the Virgin that she is to give

birth to the Son of God. She holds in her hand a Bible that prophesies* the birth; on her right is a vase of lilies, symbolizing her purity.

There are signs of the kinds of experimentation that prefigured renaissance art: the backgound of pillars is drawn with a sense of perspective, and the clothes of Raphael are drawn with a sense of motion. Nonetheless, the poses are stylized, and the allegorical meaning of the painting is stronger than its realism -- the lilies, the background of gold*, and the Bible conveniently held open.

This scene comes from the 'Maestà', a huge altarpiece painted on both sides by the Sienese painter Duccio and his workshop for the high altar of the cathedral in Siena. It was dismembered in 1771.

Footnotes

  1. A prophecy

    The Bible is open at a passage that reads:

    "Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and he shall be called [Emmanuel]." From the Old Testament (Isaiah 7: 14).

  2. Gold as symbol

    The symbolic meaning of gold in the natural order of nature is explored elsewhere on this site CD-ROM.